ZACHARIAH #1
INTRODUCTION
Years before and during the Industrial Revolution, in order to learn a trade, orphans and children of impoverished families might be apprenticed or even sold to a tradesman—sometimes for less than the price of a dog.
In many cases these children became little more than chattel and their apprenticeship often became a form of cruel slavery.
In order to clean a soot-coated chimney, the usual practice at that time was to tie a broom, homemade brush, or even a live duck or chicken—its flapping wings acting as movable brushes—to the middle of a rope and, with someone at either end, drag it up and down the dirty flue.
In the 1800s, however, London had thousands of zigzag chimneys, and in order to clean them properly—or so the British thought—it was necessary to send a “climbing boy,”a small child armed with a brush and scrapper, directly into them.
Fire, undeniably, is one of the worst possible disasters that might befall any household, and, superstition often having a basis in fact, if a house were to burn and along with it all of the inhabitant’s worldly possessions, that, in fact, could definitely be considered bad luck. As flue fires were most often the cause of these disasters, it was then thought that once a chimney sweep entered a house and plied his trade that house would be immune from fire, thus it came to be believed that it was good luck to have a chimney sweep in the house. Even to this day, upon seeing a chimney sweep, some people will come to touch him, hoping that bit of luck might rub off on them.
Succumbing to consumption—tuberculosis—and the dreaded, deadly Chimney Sweep disease, ‘sooty wart’ —cancer of the scrotum—luck had very little to do with the life of a climbing boy as few were fortunate enough to survive their apprenticeship.
The abuse and exploitation of these children became the basis for civilization’s first child labor laws.
The first of these laws was passed by Parliament in Great Britain in the mid-eighteen hundreds.
Screenplay Excerpt
THE CLIMBING BOY : Screenplay by Andy
Davie Based on the novel: 'The Climbing
Boy' by Mark M. Lichterman.
Copyright TX 7-331-839 WGA #1449406
Title Card:
“December 24th 1905, Boston,
Massachusetts”’
INT. GRANDPA’S HOUSE - LIVING
ROOM - DAY The room is modestly, but
beautifully decorated for Christmas.
A Christmas tree sits in one corner, minus
its star. A large log fire burns in the
fireplace. In a large wooden rocking chair
sits GRANDPA (60’s) with a small boy,
STEPHEN (5) sitting on his lap. A coin on a
chain sparkles beneath Grandpa’s shirt as
he reads from a very old book.
Stephen is transfixed.
GRANDPA And that’s how the presents
arrive under the tree. Stephen glances at the
base of the tree in the corner then at the
fireplace. He points at the fire.
STEPHEN But Santa Claus ’ll get his
clothes so dirty.
Grandpa smiles at Stephen as he
sets the book down, then gazes into the fire.
GRANDPA There was a story my mother,
your great grandmother, told me when I
was about your age.
STEPHEN When you lived in England?
GRANDPA Yes Stephen, when I lived in
London. (BEAT) It was about a climbing
boy. Do you know what a climbing boy is?
Stephen shakes his head.
GRANDPA (CONT’D) Well a long time ago
there lived a little climbing boy…
We move into the fire, up the chimney and
through the blackness as Grandpa’s voice
fades.
GRANDPA (CONT’D) …his name was
Zachariah.
Grandpa’s voice fading…
Fading...
INT. JOHNSON’S SHACK - NIGHT The
blackness gives way to a single sputtering
candle. A young boy, ZACHARIAH
ZACHARIAH #1
December 24, 1843
London, England
Pre-dawn
The scent of Mama.
Comfortable.
Warm.
The child snuggled closer into the warmth.
Sitting partially in shade, her face and shoulders hidden in shadow, the lower portion of Mama’s body was bathed in brilliant sunlight.
His head nestled in the soft hollow of her bosom, the
little boy lay in his Mama’s lap.
“Ah, Zachariah,” she cooed, winding her finger into one of the tight, blonde curls over his ear. “My little Zachariah.”
Moving his face deeper, feeling the coolness of her starched, white apron, breathing deeply the boy smiled as he smelled the sweet, warm scent of his Mama.
“ ‘Zachariah’!”
Through rapidly thinning layers of joy and warmth and comfort the boy sensed the dual spectrum's of cold and loneliness as, burrowing his face lower in the warm valley of his mother’s breasts, he found that by breathing deeply through his mouth the dry vapor of his breath warmed his face but…
“Zachariah! ‘Now’!”
But now the warm, sweet scents of Mama merged with a sad, deep longing that came to the boy as strong as physical pain.
“Damn ya, boy!” Lifting his foot… “I want ya up, ‘now’!”
Jostled by the toe of a boot shoved roughly into the small of his back, his eyes opening instantly, the boy stared into the dim, smoky light of the smoldering fireplace.
“Off your arse now boy, an’ go an’ give ‘er a few pokes!”
Lifting himself from his pallet, wrapping the course, stained tatter of the blanket around his shoulders, the boy looked longingly at the burlap and rag pillow that was still indented where his head had lain forming a valley, making warm mounds on either side of his face…Mama?
The cold gloom of the one-room shack merged with the dreary luminescence of the fireplace and the feeble light of a late December moon that came through the shack’s only window.
In the depressive darkness, the boy’s face was blacker than the wavering shadows. Streaked with varying hues and layers of soot, as though when one layer was washed away it left a vestige of itself to merge with the underlying layer, causing an uneven blackness stippled with gray ringed around his neck and ears with a heavier and deeper blackness.
Nearer to the age of nine than eight, the boy, under different circumstances, would be considered a beautiful child, but because he lacked nourishing food he was small and thin with features that were out of proportion and larger than would best be suited for his undernourished face. His small nose turned slightly upward. His mouth was round with full lips. His second set of teeth, due to a meager diet, were slow in coming and intermixed with his smaller first teeth, and the boy’s left upper incisor grew through his gum at a noticeable angle. Shaved at the start of each month, the stubble of hair on his head, if clean, would be tightly curled, light blonde in color.
If one’s eyes are sometimes considered windows to the soul, Zachariah’s eyes might be considered headlamps to his heart. Beneath delicately shaped blonde lashes, shining through the soot and grime of his face as if beacons in the night, ringed with a darker blue, the irises of the boy’s eyes were light blue with flecks of green, and when smiling the boy’s face would broaden and the little creases at the corners of his eyes and mouth—having been retracted and partially protected from much of the dirt—would come to view.
It was this smile that had caused many a rear door maid to give the boy a desperately needed and so wanted slice of bread, or even—on rare occasions—a biscuit.
Contrary to custom, the boy did his best to keep himself clean, but the only running water in the mud flat, London slum where he lived was at the end of a small gully, about a quarter mile from the hovel he shared with his master.
When he was sent for water—which was near about each night—Zachariah would attempt to rinse the loose soot from his hands and face; and at least once a fortnight, no matter what the weather—unless truly frigid, when the slowly running trickle of water bubbling through the shale from the rocks above was frozen solid—he would stand naked beneath the dribble, goose pimples playing over his thin torso and legs, scrubbing himself with any scrap of lye soap he’d been able to beg or steal.
The cold water and bit of soap did little to remove the soot that had permeated the pores of his skin, but by vigorous scrubbing of his scalp and groin, he had been able to keep his head free of scalp ulcers and his groin free of ‘sooty wart’.
The boy cleaned his teeth by using his finger and the sandy, granulated gravel he found on the ground beneath the spring.
Weighing sixty-four pounds, even though Zachariah was small for his age, one day soon he would be too large to climb the flues. He wondered what his master was going to do with him when that time arrived.
Sighing deeply, vapor coming from his mouth and nostrils, he arose from his pallet of rags, and canvas and burlap soot bags.
The soles of his bare feet burning with cold as he stepped onto the near frozen, raw wood floor, the boy ran to the warmer stones of the hearth.
Using the poker, he stabbed at the banked ashes, causing a shower of sparks to fly upward, then added two large scraps of wood to the now- glowing bed of embers.
Shivering, goose bumps rising along the exposed flesh of his neck and arms, turning his back to the fire, the boy stood as close as possible for as long as he dared without receiving his master’s verbal or physical admonishment, then, after a few moments, leaving the comparative warmth of the fire and going to the table, he poked his finger through the thin, icy crust in the dirty, rusted basin.
Water running through his fingers causing lighter streaks of brown on the undersides of his arms, using his cupped hands he splashed the twice-used water onto his face.
Reaching to the filthy rag laying across the back of one of the two chairs in the room, Zachariah briskly dried his hands and face.
The boy struggled with his memory constantly, trying to keep the image of his mother vividly in mind. He thought he remembered her, but to a nearer nine-than-eight-year old child dreams and reality became confused, so as time went the memories of his mother became fuzzier and he no longer knew what was real and what was not.
The boy thought he had been with the Master since the age of four, but he was not really sure of that, or his age because all he knew was what his master had told him, and due to a strong thirst for cheap gin, the Master very often distorted what little he did tell the boy.
William Johnson, besides being a drunkard, was a “Master Sweep,” and Zachariah his apprentice.
Next: Zachariah #2
